Where there's a Will there's a Hope

One night Rebecca went to visit Hope, a large bag and a shoebox in her arms. Hope let her in with a perplexed look on her face, "If this is about Will I really don't want to hear it." she began but Rebecca waved her hand dismissively.

"It has nothing to do with my son, I promise."  She said, laying down the bag and the box. "I thought, since your father is hopeless in these matters and you'd never ask, I would bring you these." She opened the bag and pulled out a sparkling blue dress, it was strapless and simple but oh, so perfect. Hope stared at it, blinking. Rebecca smiled and held it towards her, "Try it on, please?" Hope took it gingerly in her hands and walked over to the mirror, she held it up against her body, it seemed too delicate for her to wear but she heard herself say, "Okay." Rebecca turned around while she changed that was until she heard Hope muttering under her breath about the zipper. Giggling Rebecca asked, "Need some help?"

Hope stood there with a frustrated grimace on her face, "please!" Rebecca zipped up the dress and  gasped, "Oh Hope you look gorgeous!" 

Hope, who had had her eyes scrunched up tight until this moment slowly turned around and opened her eyes. The dress hugged her chest tightly, cinching under her breasts but flowing elegantly to the floor allowing only her toes to peep out from underneath it, the skirt of the dress was netted and sewn with sequins that caught the light. Rebecca handed her a pair of white delicate shoes, Hope stood in them and appeared to shoot up two inches. Tears pricked at both their eyes but for very different reasons.

"I knew it would fit," Rebecca gasped, clasping her hands together, "It was your mothers." Hope bit her lip as tears threatened to fall, she was stronger then that. 

In an oddly flat tone she said, "thank you," She took off the dress and laid it carefully back in it's bag. "But I'm not going." Her mother's friend gaped at her before asking her why but Hope would say nothing more, she politely escorted Rebecca to the door before closing it and running back upstairs to her room where she shut the door and leant against it. 

Hope lay down on her bed, the image of herself in the dress played through her mind over and over until she wanted to scream. She pressed her pillow on her face for a second before throwing it across the room, all her anger flowed out of her and turned in to nothingness, all her emotions seemed to drain. "I'll never be beautiful. " she said matter-of-factly to herself as she stared at her face in the mirror, "but so what! I don't need people anyway I'll write books, travel the world..." A tear slipped down her cheek but she brushed it away and went over to her desk. Her quill flicked against the paper, ink splashed onto her face as she wrote furiously. It was early in the morning before she stopped and sat back, her hand cramped and her eyes blurred the words in front of her. She stumbled over to her bed and fell in to a deep, dreamless sleep.

Will woke up at dawn suddenly. His face was drenched with sweat and his heart raced, he was scared but he didn't know why. He shivered violently and pulled his blanket up to his chin, he had no memory of what he was just dreaming about but he knew it was earth shatteringly horrifying. Will's mouth was dry and his heart still thudded in his chest as it tried desperately to escape it's cage. He swung his feet to the side of his bed, his feet chilled by the cold floorboards, he put his head in his hands and focused on his breathing until his heart slowed and the shivers stopped. "Shit." He swore quietly, running his long fingers through his sweaty hair, "I'm losing my mind." He got up and padded to the kitchen where he splashed freezing cold water on to his face, the searing cold waking him up and bringing him to his senses. "it was just a dream!" He repeated as he quickly changed and put on his shoes. He left a note for his mother before going for a long, very long, run around town. 

By the time Will returned his mother was up and cooking breakfast, she glanced at him as he walked in but refrained from saying anything. He headed to his room to wash and change before school. The run had been good, as he pushed his body to run he had pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind so he could focus on more important things - the princess. He scrawled a new not:

I'll be at the ball, my beautiful girl. I will come for you. 

He smiled, quite proud of himself. He dropped it off at the plaza where the princess was staying on his way to school. All day he grinned like a fool, the nightmare was completely forgotten for the moment but so was Hope who watched him joke around with his friends glumly from up in the branches of the large oak tree. She'd never really had many friends, she was too outrageous for the other girls who preferred baking to getting dirty but she'd never noticed until now. No matter what she'd always had Will by her side. She clambered down the tree and went to see her favourite teacher, Mr. Elmwood; it was time for Hope to branch out and begin her walk to fame. 

"Miss," She said tentatively, Mr. Elmwood was busily going through a large stack of school work, jsr brow furrowed. He looked up at Hope's voice and smiled warmly. 

"Sit dear, girl, sit!"  He gestured to the chair in front of his large desk, "Give me one moment and I'll be right with you." Hope nodded and instead looked around his office, it was typical, lined wall to wall with large bookshelves that housed expensively leather bound books. In the middle of the shelf exactly behind Mr. Elmwood was a large photo of his wife, she was small and petite with dimples, freckles scattered across her face and curly dark hair; she had passed away five years ago but he was still helplessly in love with her. He looked up and followed Hope's gaze. He simled sadly. 

"She was amazing my Gloria. She wanted to be someone, to change the world! I really think she would've if it wasn't for the cancer." Tears appeared in Mr. Elmwood's eyes but he smiled and blinked them back, hiding them away as he so often had before, it was like he caged his emotions tightly in his chest. Hope felt a pang of sympathy for him but instead pushed on.

"I've been writing," she started, encouraged by his widened smile, "A lot actually and I was wondering if you could help me get published in a newspaper?" His smiled slid off his face like a runny egg. 

"Oh." He seemed very interested in a knot in the wood of his desk and wouldn't look up, "Hope, you know that's not possible. Women.....you know the mayor wouldn't approve...I'd love to help you personally I disagree with...but that's not the point." Hope's eyes pricked with tears that threatened to fall very soon, not wanting to do so in front of her teacher she bit her lip and nodded. 

"Okay. Excuse me." She rushed out of the room and collapsed in the girls bathroom, her body heaving with sobs. She'd known it all a long but she had hoped. She should've expected it with all the disapointments she had suffered this week. She dragged herself off the floor and walked calmly from the school, her head lowered and her heart broken. Will didn't see her as she passed and she was glad. She went home, ignoring the startled look from her father and locked herslelf in her room before slowly, precisely, tearing up all the stories she'd written. They'd all been carefully kept in a shoebox under her bed that she had stuck a drawing of her and Will on top of, just seeing it brough more tears to the flood. Hope laid down on the floor and, exhausted, fell asleep.  

 When she woke up her head pounded horribly, she stumbled to the kitchen. Her father quickly got up from where he had been sitting at the table reading the newspaper, and hugged her tightly. She didn't cry but simply put her head on his shoulder, her throat clogged with all her emotions. Her father understood and only hugged tighter. He held her away from him and look closely in to her eyes, "this isn't just William isn't?" She shook her head and collapsed on the nearest kitchen chair. "No, I was just trying to be myself in a town that doesn't want me to be." Her father, his kind grey eyes filled with tears, he stroked her dark hair gently. 

"Ah my baby girl, you're so much like you're mother." He made her a cup of warm hot chocolate and tucked her in to bed, he noticed the torn scraps of paper but ignored them, instead he sat at the end of the bed and read his daughter her favourite story until she drifted off to sleep with a peaceful smile on her face. He put the book down, pulled the covers up and kissed Hope on the forehead. "I love you." He whispered quietly before tip-toeing from the room. 

His mind was made up as he crossed the living room to the front door, he grabbed his jacket and headed out the door. It was time he talked to Rebecca and they told Hope and Will the truth.